The company, based in Wuxi, China, said on March 18 it
defaulted on $541 million of convertible bonds, prompting
speculation on its future. Earlier, Suntech said it was talking
with local government agencies in the region about financial
support and also negotiated a two-month forbearance with 63
percent of its bondholders.

Shi Zhengrong, who was ousted as chairman earlier this
month, while remaining a director, said he couldn’t comment on
whether the company will file for bankruptcy.

“You’ll have to wait to see if there’s an announcement,”
he said by telephone today.

Calls to the company’s head office weren’t answered today.

The bankruptcy would follow more than a dozen others by
solar manufacturers such as Q-Cells SE, which went out of
business after a jump in factory capacity created a glut in
photovoltaic panels, cutting margins across the industry.

The move will bring China a step closer to consolidating
its solar industry, which includes four of the top six panel
makers. Suntech more than doubled its annual production capacity
to 2,400 megawatts in 2011 from 2009, according to data compiled
by Bloomberg. It had more than $2.2 billion of debt at the end
of March 2012, the data show.

The company hasn’t released earnings since then, after
announcing in July 2012 that it may have been the victim of
fraud involving 560 million euros ($725 million) of German bonds
that may have never existed.